Matrix Messenger & Rocket.Chat: Swedish authorities communicate interoperably

Sweden is continuing to advance the development of a digital communication infrastructure based on open standards. As announced by the Swedish government network eSam and the Matrix provider Element, the social insurance agency Försäkringskassan and the transport authority Trafikverket have successfully connected their previously separate communication systems. This is made possible by the open communication standard Matrix, which enables interoperability between different messenger platforms. While Försäkringskassan uses the Matrix-based messenger “SAFOS Chatt”, Trafikverket relies on Rocket.Chat. Despite using different software, employees of both authorities can now communicate directly with each other.

The initiative is supported by the Swedish cooperation program eSam, which includes more than 40 authorities and public institutions. The goal is a vendor-independent and digitally sovereign communication infrastructure for the public sector, with more authorities and providers expected to join in the coming years.

According to eSam, this is initially a pilot operation that is scheduled to be expanded to other authorities and users after the summer of 2026. The aim is to test additional application scenarios and gather experience for a broader rollout. Currently, support for the open Matrix protocol, used by Element, Rocket.Chat, and Mattermost, among others, is a prerequisite for participation.

More Interoperability

The trend is increasingly towards open standards that allow switching between different providers. Unlike proprietary platforms, communication capability is not tied to a single manufacturer. Different providers can communicate with each other as long as they support the same standard. Federation thus occurs not via central platforms but through a network of independent systems.

According to eSam, the currently fragmented landscape of different communication solutions complicates collaboration between authorities. The goal is not to replace existing tools but to create a common communication layer that functions across organizations, similar to email.

Försäkringskassan's IT Director Peter Haglind explained that the public sector has a clear need for a common standard for digital communication. The federation now launched shows that this is technically feasible and can now be scaled. Furthermore, it is an important step towards greater interoperability, reduced dependencies on individual providers, and better collaboration in everyday work as well as in crisis.

Matrix also plays a role in Germany. The TI-Messenger (TIM) for the healthcare sector is based on the protocol and is being gradually rolled out to insured individuals, health insurance companies, medical practices, and other service providers. The Bundeswehr also uses Matrix with the Bw Messenger. The resulting Bundes Messenger is also intended to serve as an open communication platform for other authorities in the future. Other matrix-based systems are used by, among others, the French government, the European Commission, and various NATO facilities.

Unlike closed platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, or WhatsApp, applications from different manufacturers should be able to communicate directly with each other in Matrix. While bridges to services like WhatsApp exist in the open-source world, there are concerns regarding data security. Many public institutions therefore see the real strength of Matrix in direct communication between Matrix-based systems from different providers.

Messaging Layer Security?

With the increasing adoption of Matrix and other federated communication platforms, the further development of the underlying security mechanisms is also gaining importance. Authorities and other public sector organizations, in particular, have high demands on confidentiality, scalability, and long-term security. A focus here is on Messaging Layer Security (MLS), a new standard for end-to-end encrypted group communication, which is to be used in numerous Messenger projects in the future.

MLS has also been closely monitored within the Matrix ecosystem for several years. The Matrix Foundation and various partners are working under the keyword “Matrix over MLS” to investigate how the standard can be combined with the decentralized and federated architecture of Matrix. The background is that MLS was not originally developed for federated systems. Integration is therefore considered technically challenging. Early proponents of the standard include the Bundeswehr and BWI, who described MLS in 2023 as a potential further development for the Bw Messenger and the resulting Bundes Messenger.

Against this background, the open-source implementation OpenMLS, which implements the standard RFC 9420 of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), has now successfully passed an independent security audit by SRLabs, financed by the Sovereign Tech Agency. The auditors identified a total of eight vulnerabilities, including one classified as high. According to the developers, seven of the eight problems have already been fixed in the current versions, and the remaining low-risk vulnerability is still being addressed.

Compared to previous methods, MLS enables significantly more efficient encryption of large groups and offers additional security mechanisms such as Perfect Forward Secrecy and post-compromise security. MLS promises advantages in performance and scalability, especially for authorities, companies, and organizations with very large communication groups. According to Phoenix R&D, OpenMLS is already being used in various projects, including Wire, XMTP, Nostr, Cloudflare Meet, and Phoenix's new Messenger Air. For Matrix, MLS currently represents primarily a potential technical advancement, the practical implementation of which remains the subject of ongoing development work.

(mack)